[Brian Jensen]

Mounted and shield, how is the shield used?

im discussing on another forum, how a person on horse would use his shield, me best arguement is that the shield is used in-actively, just to "shield" the non-weapon side, so the person on horse can concentrate on using his weapon and controlling the horse. i don't belive that a person could use his shield to activily block persons on both sides of his horse.

is there any historical evidence how a mounted person was using his shield?

[Felix Wang]

I am not sure about the evidence, but a distinction has to be made between the long kite shields and smaller "heater" shields (not to mention Greek and Roman cavalry, who mostly used round/oval shields). The long kite shield is well adapted to covering pretty much the whole left side of a rider, from shoulder down to calf; plus it would be clumsy to move this shield to the other side of the horse. So it was likely used in a less active fashion, although I am sure it was maneuvered somewhat. With the smaller shields, a more active defense was possible and necessary, since the shield covered less of the body.

Warhorses were highly trained and expensive, so it is possible they were controlled mostly with the legs and not the reins. This would free up the shield arm.

[Bill Grandy]

I don't know much about mounted combat with a shield, but I have a [very] passing familiarity with longsword combat from horseback. Felix is right that the horse is controlled very much by the legs, and not as much by the reigns as other more common forms of horseback riding is done. There were many things that could be done that required both hands despite riding the horse, including half swording and grappling. The 1467 edition of Talhoffer has a mounted combat section that depicts some of these techniques, and also shows the use of the crossbow, which took two hands to properly use.

That said, I don't know how a shield was used. Quite honestly, I'm not sure that anyone truly does: I've never heard of any evidence surrounding it. As it is, there isn't any solid, concrete evidence of how shields were used on foot, only interpretations extrapolated from various sources. I would imagine that the knight would have to have some movement of the shield, else the saddle should just have a big plate attached to it. But that's just my own theory based on principles of foot combat more than anything else.

[Brian Jensen]

i know that later in the middel ages when plate armour was developed, some knights did not use shields at all when on horse

[Jeremy V. Krause]

It seems that this discussion highlights a fundemental gap in the knowledge of the average modern historical weapons/combat enthusiasts, myself most especially included. We tend to know little about dynamics of historical horse riding, indeed I know next to nothing about modern horse riding- and yet mastery of using the horse was the hallmark of the medieval knight. I get around this by placing my collecting focus on the average non-knight infantry- who likely didn't have a sword at all- but I'll ignore that little factoid. So this brings me to a side question- how do folks feel about buying swords- like the Albion Ritter, that were so clearly meant for the cavalry when they have no access to use the sword in such a manner- for me I don't tend to focus on weapons meant so specifically to be wielded from horseback but on pieces that could have been used either way- just a thought. Anyway it sure would be enlightening to have some knowledgable folks to talk about historical horse riding and the relation to historical combat. Am I rambling??

[Steve Fabert]

Jeremy, the relationship between the knight and his horse depends on the era, and the ethnicity of the knight. Once you reach the Hundred Years' War (mid 14th to mid 15th Century) the English had nearly given up fighting from horseback altogether, though continental armies continued to stay mounted most of the time, if they rode to the battlefield. Even during the Crusades there was plenty of horseless combat, and of course siege warfare was essentially horseless also. So there are lots of scenarios for the use of the classic medieval cavalry swords by men on foot.

[Jeremy V. Krause]

Thanks for the historical/ethnographic perspective. The question that remains however, relates not to the classic medieval sword but to the highly specialized cavalry swords. (single hand with little taper and broad cutting area- such as the Tritonia and the Ritter).

[Alexi Goranov]

[Felix Wang]

Alexi has hit on the heart of the matter - a knight was defined by his horse. That is why the word for knight in several languages is related to the word for horseman: French chevalier, Spanish caballero, German Ritter.

Men-at-arms did fight dismounted in other cases than the HYW, for example the Milanese at Arbedo. On the whole, they tended to fight mounted. The English method of the HYW had its limitations - no other country could provide a similar mass of effective archers, and the method depended on persuading the enemy to attack you head on.

[Walt Ligon]

We might not know much about horses here, but I know that there are equestrian groups that still study the arts of warhorse training. Many of the "cute" tricks trained horses can do were actually combat moves that allowed a knight beset by infantry to use his horse a weapon, turning in place, kicking with front and back legs, and manuvering front,
back, side to side and in diagonals, all under direction of the rider's feet. The knight would use weapons and shield (if he carried one) with his hands. As armor improved, shields disappeared so the knight could use his weapons more easily on both sides. I can't imagine attacking an armed man in plate armor riding a beast that could jump, kick, spin, and charge on command - what a fearsom thing that would be! Several med with spears would be about the only way, and if the horse can get free and charge, even that will require a lot of skill and guts to hold a line.

Of course, the ratio of knights to footmen was pretty small - unless the army was very well equiped with a heavy cavalry, but as other have pointed out, the ranged weapons could be used to break up a tight formation.

This is, of course, why the gun totally changed warfare! Easy to use, ranged, defeats armor. After that, the horse was just mobility.

Walt

[Rod Walker]

Hi Guys, I have done an awful lot of mounted fighting. From 11th century Norman through to 17th century Harqubusier. Jousting, sword and shield, Norman mail, 13thC full mail, 14thC transitional plate, early 15thc full plate and my latest acquisition (when it is finished) full mid 16thC garniture harness.

When using a shield in combat whilst mounted the shield, whether it be a large Norman Kite or a smaller 14thC Heater, is suspended by a guige and you either have no arms through the enarmes or maybe use one enarme. The shield is in effect another piece of armour covering your left side. The left arm needs to be relatively free to allow the reins to be used. Having a shield strapped to your left arm and attempting to 'block' with it whilst trying to control your mount in the middle of a mellee is a bad idea.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Rod
http://blakpryns.tripod.com/

[Jason M. K.]

I know a little about horseback riding, from watching my sister do it for the past seven years or so, and from what I can tell, the horse would have to be extremely well trained to be solely controlled via the legs. In fact, I don't think it was all legs, because to get the commands across for all the various movements requires the use of both legs and at least one hand in modern day riding, which doesn't include the commands to buck in either direction (though that happens without commands at times ).

Jason M. K.

[David C. Antman]

Having done a certain amount of horseback riding in my life and having watched others of much greater skill than I, I can say with confidence that 95% of controling a horse comes from the legs, especially since in the thick of horse to horse melee speed would be less of an issue, so there would be less claf-squeezing and more kicking of the haunches to change the animal's direction. It is important to remeber that knights would have spent the majority of their lives on horses, and if someone today who has been riding for 20 years can ride a horse effectively at speed and manouver without their arms (and I've seen it done) there's no reason someone back then couldn't either. I think the guige would have kept the sheild stable so that a knight could drop it if he needed to grab the reigns, but when fighting would need to use it as actively (possibly excepting the large kite sheilds) as an infantryman otherwise it would be only minimally effective. There's no point in having a shield if you're just going to hope someone else hits their weapon against it.

[Felix Wang]

It may be worth adding that the smaller "heater" shields of the 13th and early 14th centuries sometimes had two sets of hand-grips in addition to the enarme for the forearm. The extra hand grip was lower than the first, and may have been used for mounted combat; it would allow the left hand to be lower than usual (possibly grasping the reins?), while the shield was still high enough to cover the bearer.

[Gordon Frye]

Please allow me to enter this discussion, as I have a fair amount of experience in dealing with horses in a "military" atmosphere. I first must agree with Mr. Walker, that using the shield in any form of extreme or exagerated movements would be a bad idea, since it would result in yanking your reins, and A.) giving the horse cues you really don't mean to give it, and B.) you are likely to cut his mouth with the bit if you're too wild. Either way results in loss of control and a hard to handle horse, which can be fatal on the battlefield.

The curb bits usually used by European Chivalry from the late Middle Ages through the Renaissance were what we consider today to be quite severe, which while giving the rider a great deal of control with light hand movements, can easily result in torn mouths and tongues if used poorly, and of course over time just minor over-use leads to a hard mouth. Equitation in it's various permutations was taken quite seriously by the Warrior Class of the day, as well they should have as it was the difference between them and the peasantry, really. Even English Knights were excellent horsemen, even if they usually dismounted to fight on foot in the 14th and 15th Centuries, and there is every reason to believe that they took care to ensure the serviceability of their expensive war-horses.

It was indeed standard practice to train the horses to respond to leg cues, as it is today, but seldom was it considered standard to rely entirely on leg commands. You just don't have the control that you need in a very, very stressful situation like combat. Horses as a general rule are adverse to such things as charges against an opponent, melee's and the like, so it takes both training and control to ensure that they do what they are expected to do. As is often pointed out in equitation lessons, the Hands/ Bit is for controlling the movement of the front of the horse, the Legs/Spurs are for controlling the back of the horse.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the shield was primarily the defense against the lance, and a lance is pretty much a "one shot weapon". In a charge, the lances are couched, and if properly carried home to the opponent, results in either the piercing of the enemy, a dismounted enemy, or a broken lance. After the lances have been dispensed with (and you need the speed of the horse in combination with the lance to transmit the shock to the target) then you resort to shorter weapons such as maces, hammers and swords, for which the shield is handy, but not nearly as necessary.

For those interested, here's the link to a cavalry class I'm giving next month, which will get into much of this discussion:

http://home.earthlink.net/~nebbo/cav/

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to add to this discussion.

Gordon Frye